


Overflow

by themorninglark



Category: Free!
Genre: Distance, Friendship, Gen, Neo Blue Breathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3508970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a late afternoon in January, Haruka is on a mission to buy some flowers, Makoto struggles to tie a tie, and Rin gets ready for a night out in town.</p><p>From three different corners of the world, they remember the past, and each other.</p><p>(Written for MakoHaruRin Week 2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overflow

**Author's Note:**

> I deeply apologise to Virginia Woolf for appropriating the wonderful opening lines of _Mrs Dalloway_ , and wandering off somewhere else altogether.
> 
> Thank you, [MHR Week](http://makoharurinweek.tumblr.com/), for this prompt ♥ I've wanted to write something based on NEO BLUE BREATHING for the longest time, because it's just an unbelievable song.
> 
> (p.s. if you're interested, I have ridiculously extensive author's notes on this fic [right here](http://themorninglark.tumblr.com/post/113162168920/overflow-authors-commentary))

Haruka said he would buy the flowers himself.

For Treasurer Kawashima Hiro had his work cut out for him; the caterers would be coming round in less than an hour's time, the streamers kept falling down because the hotel they were at seemed to have only that one brand of tape which refused to stick to the wall, and his phone kept ringing with panicked calls from first year Shiratori Teru and his crew of ragtag intrepids, who had been given the unenviable job of distracting Captain Tsukino and Vice-Captain Kitazawa for the day.

Five minutes ago, Hiro had been struck with the horrific realisation that there were no readily accessible flowers for their traditional farewell bouquet presentation to the graduating committee members, and that the gift shop at this ski resort sold nothing but goddamn jackets, hand warmers and fuzzy slippers that looked like bunnies.

Haruka had suggested, not entirely in jest, that said fuzzy slippers would be a perfectly acceptable substitute. They were highly practical gifts, especially in this weather. Haruka's idea had not been met with general approval.

So Haruka pulled on his jacket, stepped out into the hotel lobby, and waited in line for the shuttle bus to town. He had even remembered to bring his scarf this time. He always left it behind. Makoto would be so proud of him.

 _This chair is uncomfortable_ , thought Haruka, shifting his weight on the hard plastic surface.

He watched the snow fall outside. It had been snowing the entire day. A typical January, up north, but for Haruka, who had spent the last three Januarys in warmer places where it did not snow, it was simultaneously a novel and nostalgic experience, this vision of drifting, swirling flakes of white on the wind beyond the glass windows. It reminded him of Iwatobi. It reminded him of hot tea, of falling asleep at the kotatsu with Ran on his lap.

The bus pulled up outside. Haruka stood up, and braced himself to face the cold.

 

* * *

 

Makoto wondered how it had come to this.

He stood in front of his bathroom mirror with his phone propped up on the counter, resting against the wall, with a video entitled _6 Ways to Tie a a Tie Professionally_ on perpetual loop. He had tried all six with varying degrees of success.

With a sigh, he went back to the start.

Rin had bought Makoto this tie, his first ever actual, non-school tie, last year for his birthday. He had picked it out in a department store in Sydney and sent it to Tokyo in the post with a note that read _happy birthday. i hear that proper grownups wear these things to work sometimes. i'm so glad haru and i aren't there (yet), they're uncomfortable as fuck._

Haru had shown Makoto how to tie it, looping it round his neck with a smile.

"How do you know how to do this?" Makoto had asked, wondering if there was any end to Haru's hidden talents.

"Makoto, we used to wear a tie to school every day. Who do you think tied my ties?"

"Oh," said Makoto, helplessly. "I just left my knot in it... and uh, got my mom to help sometimes, whenever it came undone."

Haru had sniffed in disdain, and stepped away from Makoto with a final tug of the knot, nodding at his handiwork.

"Rin picked a good colour. This dark green brings out your eyes. Much better than the Iwatobi High School green."

Rin had always been the one with the sartorial sense, among the three of them; Makoto was well aware that Haru would never in thousand years think to buy him something like a tie. Yet, without Haru, the tie resisted all of Makoto's clumsy attempts to fashion it into something vaguely presentable to the outside world.

Haru was not in Tokyo today. Haru had gone on an overnight trip to a ski resort for their university team's annual retreat, where they would farewell their senpai, presumably drink a lot of alcohol, and do very little actual skiing.

Makoto worked the knot round his throat, feeling like he might choke, and stopped the video playing on his phone. He took a picture of himself in the mirror so he could show Haru later and have his tie-tying technique thoroughly eviscerated.

It looked _okay_ , thought Makoto, and that was probably the best he was going to get.

His watch beeped, signalling the hour.

Makoto put his phone into his pocket. He walked into his bedroom, smoothed out a crease in his jacket, then picked up the piece of paper on his desk with the address in Shibuya printed on it and rehearsed the metro route in his head for the tenth time over.

Now and then, he caught a glimpse of himself in the full length mirror, and the sight made him stare.

He was tall, with broad, strong shoulders that the jacket accentuated, and with the desperate effort he'd made to tame his wildly sticking-out hair, he almost looked like a - how had Rin put it? - _proper grownup_.

He felt very far away from being one, and wondered if all proper grownups felt that way inside.

 

* * *

 

"I can't," said Rin, with his eyes closed.

"Can't what, you lazy shit?"

Rin raised his middle finger. "Can't goddamn move."

"Oh, shut _up_. You haven't been out for too long, Matsuoka. Come out tonight or I'll kick your ass out of this house myself."

Rin had known his roommate Nathaniel since his schooling days in Australia, and Nate still called him _Mat - SOO - oh - ka_ , in the way people did when they couldn't wrap their heads round the _tsu_ sound, but in Nate's particular case, Rin was perfectly cognizant of the fact that he was just doing it to piss Rin off.

Nate spoke passable _gaijin_ Japanese, and had a Japanese girlfriend who loved bringing girls round to introduce to Rin. No doubt, thought Rin, tonight's insistence that they all go out clubbing together was one of her ideas, and no doubt, there would be another girl that they would try to foist onto him.

The clock on the wall pronounced the time to be late afternoon, verging on evening at a quarter past five. It felt more like noon. Nate went out to dinner with Yumiko, kicking Rin's bed once more and delivering another death threat for good measure.

Rin lay still, unmoving, basting slowly in a puddle of his own sweat, as the radio blasted old-school AC/DC in the living room.

His eyes were closed because he was too lazy to get up and draw the curtains. The blazing sun, already scorching the backs of his eyelids, would blind him if he opened his eyes the slightest crack.

Rin rolled over to smush his face into his pillow and cursed the heat of Australian summer with a muttered oath. He contemplated taking his third shower of the day.

 _Dammit,_ he thought, _I'm turning into Haru._

He thought longingly of winter in Japan, and sighed.

The loud beep of his phone sounded from his bedside table. With an effort, Rin lifted his head and stretched his arm out to pick it up.

_From: Nate Macauley  
_ _Heads up, Yumi's bringing u a date_

_Totally called it,_ thought Rin.

He let out a long, low groan, and rolled out of bed unglamorously, landing on his butt on the floor.

 

 

✮

 

 

There was only one flower shop in town, and Haruka was relieved beyond measure to find that it was still open, because the wrath of Kawashima Hiro was not to be lightly reckoned with. He shuffled the snow off his shoes on the mat outside that said _welcome_ , and pushed the rickety wooden door open.

The sound of a small bell tinkling rang through the shop. It was warm, unexpectedly so, and cosy, every nook and cranny in sight crammed with winter blooms in shades of white and dusty pink. It smelled of his garden at home, of a quieter, simpler time watering the flowerbeds in the front yard with his grandmother. The green of freshly cut stems, the earthy scent of soil, made Haruka stop in his tracks.

"Coming!" called a cheery female voice from the back of the shop.

Haruka leaned over a vase of camellias, cherry red and startling against the snowy backdrop outside, and thought of what a striking picture it would make.

An older woman with her grey hair in a messy bun emerged. She smiled at Haruka. "You must have come down from the resort. Haven't seen you before."

“Yeah.” Haruka nodded. “I’m sorry to trouble you. I need some flowers for a party...."

He reached into his pocket for his phone, retrieved the photo of last year's bouquet presentation that Hiro had sent him in a hurry, and showed it to the woman.

"Like that," he said.

She took one look at his phone and shook her head. "Don't have any irises. What you see is what you get here."

Haruka looked at the photo again, then up, and around him, at the flowers in the shop. His knowledge of flowers extended to what he had watched his grandmother grow in his childhood. He did not have a green thumb. Even if he did, it was impossible to keep a garden in Tokyo. The apartments were crammed too close to each other.

He could not call Hiro to ask what to do. He would be defenestrated upon his return if he tried to bother him now. He needed Makoto. Makoto knew all about small living things. Makoto kept his flowers blooming.

But Makoto was at an important job interview, and Haruka, who had never interviewed for a job in his life, did not wish to disturb him; he did not know what Makoto was going through right now, and he could not begin to imagine it.

_Is this what it means?_

Earlier this morning, he had thought, fleetingly, of sending Makoto a text to wish him good luck. He had taken his phone out of his pocket. Then - what had happened?

He had been interrupted by Shiratori Teru, who had come barrelling down the stairs into the breakfast room and begged Haruka to come and help him with the decorations because he didn't have the slightest idea how to make things look good and that was Nanase-senpai's forte, everyone knew he was a formidable artistic talent and the Art Club was always begging for him to join them as a sideline from swimming.

So Haruka had eaten the rest of his saba, egg and rice in a hurry, got up to follow Teru, and stuffed his phone back into his pocket, message untyped and unsent, words and feelings that remained drifting, unspoken, in the dusty corners of his mind.

 _Is this what it means?_ Haruka wondered. To be apart, to walk on their own paths, staring into that vortex of blue, that spun them round and spat them out in different places?

In the absence of any ready aid, Haruka made a decision himself. He gestured vaguely towards some impressive looking flowers by the counter - _peonies?_ , he thought - and said, "I'll take those then. And... whatever goes with them? I need three bouquets."

The woman nodded. "Leave it to me, I’ll help you out. Peonies and hmmm... honeysuckle... maybe some sprigs of the small winter sakura..."

Haruka started to pace round the shop as he waited. He paused by the doorway, running his fingers idly through the needles of the small pine tree standing there. A relic from Christmas just past, there still remained a few strings of unlit fairy lights and a gold star at the top of the tree, perched slightly askew.

He thought of the Christmas cards that Rin had sent, one to each of them. Haruka kept his on his bookshelf next to the trophies, Makoto's sat on a windowsill in his living room.

They had never shown each other what Rin had written to both of them. It wasn't something that was necessary. Makoto wrote his own card back. So did Haruka.

Sometimes, when people looked at them they saw _MakotoandHaruka_ , and _HarukaandMakoto_ , not knowing where one ended and the other began.

Rin had always seen them as Makoto, and Haruka, and loved them both the same.

 

* * *

 

"It's nice to meet you, Tachibana-kun."

Director Masuda Ryu had a firm handshake and a gaze like a clear, cloudless sky, open, with nowhere to hide.

Makoto smiled as best as he could while his stomach busied itself doing backflips, and returned the handshake. "The honour is mine, Masuda-san."

"Kei had very nice things to say about you," remarked Masuda, walking into his office and gesturing for Makoto to follow.

" _Huh?_ Are you sure?" Makoto blurted out, and immediately regretted it.

Irie Kei was the general manager of the swimming club where Makoto had done a one-month placement arranged by his university, and not a day had passed last summer when he had not found some fault to pick with Makoto's assistance, whether it be the photocopying being off-centre, the coffee being too hot, or the coaching schedules drawn up in an Excel file he couldn't understand; they had always done it on the whiteboard in the office with blue and red markers, and they would continue to do it on the whiteboard in the office with blue and red markers, none of this newfangled spreadsheet nonsense, for General Manager Irie-san.

Masuda turned around, eyebrows raised.

Makoto blanched. He could feel his palms start sweating again. "Uh," he said. "I mean... uh."

_Smooth, Makoto. Smooth._

Masuda laughed then, a short, knowing laugh. "I know how Kei is. All he said was that you didn't suck as much as the last guy. That's high praise from him."

"Ah," said Makoto. It came out in an unnaturally high-pitched squeak. He sounded like he was being strangled.

"But Kei runs a small club. This is the biggest gym in Shibuya. It's a different ballgame here."

Masuda sank into a plush-looking chair behind his desk, waving for Makoto to sit across him. "So tell me why you want to work here and why I should hire you."

Makoto took a deep breath. He could do this. He'd practised for this. "Well, I'm studying sports education. I've done a few work placements in swimming clubs and schools around Tokyo. At Irie-san's club last summer, I worked in the office and helped the coaches with classes in the pool every afternoon - "

To his surprised, Masuda cut him off abruptly, waving a hand in the air.

"I can read your CV for myself, Tachibana-kun. Just get to the point. Let's not waste time."

He fixed Makoto with a steady, searching gaze.

"Why do you _really_ want to work here? Be honest."

Makoto stared back. He swallowed, and felt something clench inside his chest. _Be honest?_ There wasn't much to it, really.

"Because this is the biggest gym in Shibuya. I can learn a lot here," he said. "And I _want_ to learn."

"So does every university student who comes to see me," said Masuda.

"I..."

Makoto had never been the sort to speak before thinking. Always so careful, always so considered, _too_ considered, said Rin with that quirk in his brow and the smile he used only for Makoto. Eye to eye, captain to captain.

"Let loose a little, Makoto," he'd say. "You don't always have to try so hard to be so goddamn perfect, you know?"

Makoto took a deep breath, and opened his mouth before he lost his nerve.

"I'm from a small town in Tottori. I was captain of my high school team, but... my team only had four people, and I had a very capable manager. Really, you should be hiring her, not me. Gou would run any office like she'd been doing it her whole life."

He looked down at the floor. He didn't dare to face forward. He was doing everything wrong. He should be meeting his interviewer's gaze head on with a straight, proud stance and a smile like he had it all under control, but the truth was, he wasn't so goddamn perfect, he never had been.

He smiled anyway, and it was a smile that reached his eyes.

His hands lay, still and steady, on his lap. Gone was the nervous twitch and the clamminess on his palms.

He went on.

"I've been swimming with two of my best friends since elementary school. They're both going to be pro swimmers. I had to find my own path... I decided the world of competition wasn't for me. But that doesn't mean I don't want to push myself to be the best in what I do."

Makoto paused for breath. He chanced a flicker of his gaze upwards, and saw Masuda leaning forward on his elbows, waiting silently for Makoto to continue.

 _Maybe Rin was right,_ thought Makoto. _Maybe honest is better than perfect._

He looked up, and felt his heart crack open at his next words. They poured forth like a river from a dam, clean and bright and tumbling over rocky gravel, washing everything away.

"Masuda-san, I'm not much, and I know you can hire anyone just as good as me from my university. All my classmates are great at what they do. But I'm from a small town in Tottori and I've never had the chance to work at a place like this. I can learn so much here. I _want_ to learn. If you give me a chance, I promise I'll be the best that I can be. That's all I can offer."

Makoto stopped talking, certain he had just dug himself deeper and deeper into an inescapable pit, but feeling so light that, perhaps, he could fly right out of it if he tried.

 

* * *

 

Rin waited till the last possible moment to leave his house, which was at exactly the time he was meant to be at the club. He had taken his time with a long, cold shower, followed by a salad for dinner, home-made, with lettuce, tomatoes, tuna and olives, and a light mayonnaise dressing he prepared himself. It had been thoroughly peaceful and enjoyable and he had watched a rerun of _Border Security_ , in which a Chinese couple were fined an outrageous amount for the grave infraction of trying to bring dried fruit and herbs into Canberra.

By the time he got dressed, picked out an ensemble with minimum effort required of him (a black cotton t-shirt with dark blue skinny jeans) and headed out, the sun had set nearly two hours ago.

Fifteen minutes later, his phone buzzed.

_From: Nate Macauley  
_ _Where r u???_

Rin typed a brusque _omw_ in reply, one-handed.

The train rumbled towards town. Rin plugged his headphones in and tapped his foot against the carriage floor, restless fingers fiddling with the pendant at his chest, a familiar, reassuring weight.

He had his hair tied back tonight. It was too hot for anything else. It was too hot to think about being on the dance floor with a hundred other scantily-clad bodies, smelling of sweat and summer and sometimes too much cheap perfume, a heady cocktail of alcohol and adrenaline and the sense that the night was young, they were young, they had all the time in the world.

But _too hot_ was no excuse. Everyone there knew it was too hot. That was why they went, thought Rin, that was how they got away with steaming up the place and slip-sliding bare skin on skin as they swayed their hips in sync with the music, with each other. They went to be seen, in their Friday night best.

Rin knew about being seen. He knew about being the centre of attention. When he was younger, he had sought it out, actively; he had chased dreams of glory, seen visions of himself standing in the flash of cameras one day with a gold medal round his neck and the world at his feet.

His passion for swimming had always had that gilt edge to it, even now. He'd never been like Haru, able to swim, to love the water, just for the sheer joy of being in it, of existing in that blue space which was soundless, timeless.

Rin got off the train at Wynyard, and made his way towards the club.

As he approached, he steeled himself for the inevitable tackling hug from Yumiko, who had lived in Australia since she was two years old and was as native as native came, but who always tried to speak Japanese to him because, she said, she needed the practice.

He pushed the doors open, jostled his way towards the bar, and tapped Nate on the shoulder. "Yo, dickhead."

"What the hell." Nate grinned. "You actually showed."

A pint-sized ball of energy with her black hair in two ponytails turned around, and pounced on him with a squeal. "Rin! You came!"

(And there was the hug.)

"Hey, Yumi," Rin said, raising his voice over the loud, thumping music. "How was your trip home over New Year?"

It slipped out of his mouth easily, _home_ , meaning Japan, though Rin knew full well that to Yumiko, Australia was home.

She smiled, understanding. "It was cold. I kind of missed the fireworks here. But _shogatsu_ is really something special too, isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Rin. "It is."

He remembered how it felt. Visiting the temple with his friends and family, hearing the bells toll through the winter's countryside on the stroke of twelve, not so quiet, this night of all nights, the busy hum of chatter, laughter and footsteps echoing all round the courtyards, and the warmth of hot barley tea in his hands.

Yumiko's voice cut into his thoughts. "Hey, Rin, this is Tanya. She's on exchange from a university in Toronto. We met at tennis club. Tanya, this is Nate's roommate Rin, from Japan."

Before Rin could say or do anything beyond shake Tanya's hand and smile at her, Yumiko leaned in close to him to speak straight into his ear.

"Tanya's really sweet. Be nice to her, all right?"

"What are you talking about? I'm always nice."

Yumiko grinned. "Well, just don't bite."

And she took Nate's hand and disappeared somewhere on the dance floor, melting into the crowd.

Rin sighed, inwardly.

It wasn't that Rin didn't like the girls that Yumiko introduced. They were always perfectly lovely. Tanya seemed perfectly lovely. She had a pleasant smile, golden brown eyes and red hair like Rin, and Yumiko was probably squealing inside at the thought of all the beautiful mixed-race redheaded children they would produce together. Yumiko was that kind of easily excitable girl.

It was just that, if Rin had to put it into words somehow, there were times when he felt as if there was truly no more space in his heart for anything like that. Sometimes, he felt like his heart was already full to bursting.

 

 

✮

 

 

"Ahem. Testing, testing…”

Hiro cleared his throat again, tapped the microphone, and addressed the chattering audience.

“Dear all, we are gathered here today to..."

"Oi Hiro, this isn't a _funeral_!"

Haruka had to stifle a small smile at the crestfallen look on Hiro's face, as Captain Tsukino interrupted his meticulously prepared speech with a shout from the front of the crowd, to the sounds of raucous laughter all around them.

Haruka stood on the makeshift stage next to Secretary Nishida Shou, holding a bouquet of peonies with honeysuckle, deep magenta, light pink and white, because after his excursion to town he had found himself, somewhat against his will, continuing to be the _de facto_ designated Flower Boy for the rest of the afternoon.

Hiro pushed up his glasses and sniffed peremptorily. "Well, I was going to say really nice things about you, _Captain_ , but if you're planning to be a dick about it - "

"What kind of kouhai calls his senpai a _dick_?"

" - let's just get to it, then! Everyone, please welcome our graduating seniors on stage to say a few words!"

And Hiro stepped back to stand on Shou's other side, handing off the microphone to Captain Tsukino, who grinned as he leapt up and over the steps at the front of the podium to warm applause.

There were twelve of them this year, senpai who had spent four years working their way to the top, winning medals at Nationals, whipping their kouhai into shape, yelling at them over months of gruelling practices, and it was all over now. They would be sitting their final examinations soon, in February they would be gone, and come Spring Commencement in March, Haruka, Hiro, Shou and the other third years would be the new senpai of the club.

Captain Tsukino would go on swimming for the National Team. But although Vice-Captain Kitazawa had been scouted, he had declined; he had tried to keep this fact under the radar, with the result that it was very much public knowledge among all of the team.

Vice-Captain Kitazawa was studying banking and finance, and had been offered a good job with Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, doing something related to corporate loans that Haruka would never even begin to understand, and Haruka thought, as Vice-Captain Kitazawa took the microphone and thanked them all for their support in his quiet, mellow way, that this might be the last time they ever saw each other.

 _Deja vu,_ thought Haruka, as he handed the first of the bouquets over to Shou to present to their Captain.

Every year, the seasons changed, the cycle repeated.

Every year, there were farewells and hugs, and Haruka melted a little more, every year, despite the cold.

Captain Tsukino clapped Shou on the back and told him to keep it together, to wait until _after_ the party to start bawling, and to take good care of his team because it was the fucking best team in all of Japan, and Shou laughed with not a hint of a tear in his eye and high-fived his outgoing Captain. Then all eyes were on Vice-Captain Kitazawa and it was Haruka's turn.

He stepped to the front of the stage and presented the flowers, as was the tradition, and as Kitazawa bent over Haruka to enfold him in a warm hug, he whispered in his ear.

"You'll be a great Vice-Captain next year, Nanase. Don't doubt yourself."

The scent of honeysuckle hung in the air, sweet and full of promise.

After the ceremony, after all the toasts had been made, and drinks had been drunk, and photographs taken, both of the sentimental and the deeply embarrassing variety, Haruka slipped out the back door and took out his phone.

It was long past midnight. There were no messages. Haruka wondered, briefly, about that; was it just that there was incredibly poor reception out in the woods where they were? Had Makoto noticed his lack of contact, and therefore thought, _better not text Haru, he must be busy_? Had Makoto, like Haruka, simply forgotten?

The red threads of their destiny stretched out before them, ribbons extending further and further away, receding into the distance.

Last week, he’d been told by Kitazawa that he would be the new Vice-Captain. He had taken the news with a quiet stoicism and a sincere word of thanks, then sent Makoto a text on his way back home, before Skyping Rin that night.

“Are you serious, Haru?” Rin had said. “That’s a big deal… congrats.”

“Is it?” Haruka had asked.

“Yeah! I mean, like, c’mon, your uni’s really strong, and it’ll be good for you. You’ll have to do some work outside of the pool for once.”

Rin’s sudden, amused grin had lingered in Haruka’s mind long after the call. “It’s not as easy as it sounds, being in a leadership role.”

“I never thought it sounded easy.”

“But you know what, Haru… it means something. It means you have the trust of your team. I think that’s the biggest thing I learned, when I became captain at Samezuka, you know?”

Rin’s voice had gone softer, more serious, and he had smiled into the webcam then, a smile that didn’t show any teeth and shone with a quiet, self-assured pride.

“And it means you’re growing, too. You found your own way there, with your own strength. You earned that trust all by yourself.”

 _Vice-Captain._ It wasn't the first time he'd been called that. But it was different, this time, as Rin had pointed out; this time, he wouldn't be looking after just Nagisa and Rei, he and Shou would be looking after a whole team of high-level swimmers at one of the strongest university teams in the country, and they would be looking to him.

Did he have what it would take? Kitazawa had told him not to doubt himself. So, too, had his friends, years ago.

_Find a dream, and seize it. You have the strength to do that._

Haruka flipped his phone open again. He typed a message, saving it to send tomorrow, when he got back to civilisation and a stronger cell signal.

_To: Tachibana Makoto  
_ _i'm back in tokyo. how did your interview go yesterday?_

He pocketed his phone, and looked up at the stars.

There was a lot that Haruka didn't know. He didn't know if he knew how to be a real vice-captain. He didn't know if he would ever see some of these people again. He didn't know how Makoto's interview had gone. He didn't even know what Rin was doing right now.

But if there was one thing he knew, it was that it didn't matter so much anymore. He believed in his friends. He had to believe in himself, too.

They walked their own paths, towards the clarion call of the future, and though they drifted apart, they came back together, always, the three of them.

 

* * *

 

Makoto stopped in 7-11 on his way home from Shibuya.

He had no food in his fridge at home. Three years of university life in Tokyo and he had learned how to boil soup and operate a rice cooker, but as finals season approached he always let the cooking slide and started living off bento and instant ramen.

Haru always told him off for it, brought round Tupperware containers filled with green curry which he stashed in Makoto's fridge, and checked now and then to make sure Makoto was eating them, but they'd both grown busier as the years went on, and Haru was always travelling to competitions and training camps, and there were times when Haru wasn't able to cook even for himself, let alone show up at Makoto's doorstep.

Perhaps it wasn't a bad thing. Makoto knew he had always relied on Haru, for far too long.

He bought two onigiri, one unagi and one kani mayo, and picked out a healthy assortment of skewers, daikon and chunks of tofu from the _oden_ counter.

It was then, standing there waiting for his change, that he saw the lilies.

"Are those for sale?" he asked, pointing. There were three of them, white as snow, and they sat in a vase on their own behind the girl at the cashier, just starting to come into a slow bloom.

"What?" She turned around. "These flowers?"

"Yeah," said Makoto.

"Ah, I'm so sorry.. they're meant to be shop decoration."

"Oh, I see! No, I'm sorry I asked, that's fine..."

The girl pushed a handful of coins over the counter, and wished Makoto a good night. He put the onigiri into his bag and picked up his oden, thanking her before starting to turn and walk away.

His gaze lingered on the lilies a moment longer than he'd intended.

The girl smiled. "Do you want them? You can have them."

"Eh?" asked Makoto, startled.

She plucked the lilies out by their stems, and laid them on the counter. "Well, the truth is, both the boss and I are really bad at taking care of flowers, and you seem really interested, so..."

"Ah, you're too kind!" said Makoto hurriedly, as the girl started wrapping the flowers in brown paper. "I - I really don't mean to - I mean, it's okay if they're not for sale!"

"It's okay, I'd rather they go to someone who can keep them well," said the girl, with a rueful grin. She held out the lilies to him, and Makoto caught the scent of one of them wafting just beneath his nose, and before he knew it he was reaching out to take them with a stuttered word of gratitude.

It was a cold January night, and Makoto stood in the middle of 7-11, two blocks down from his apartment, flowers and a warm bowl of oden in his hands, on his way home to eat his dinner alone.

But it was okay, it was okay like this, it was okay with the lilies because two summers ago when he'd gone to his very first teaching work placement in an elementary school in Shinagawa-ku, Haru and Rin had been away at a tournament in China, and it had been Rin's idea to send him the flowers.

Of course it would have been Rin's idea, the helpless, hopeless romantic, and it was Haru's voice he had heard in the card that came with the bouquet at his doorstep, typed in an impersonal Times New Roman but Haru all over nonetheless.

 

_Makoto, sorry we're not there to support you, but you'll do fine. It's you, after all. We ordered these from a website and argued about what flowers to go for so in the end we clicked on "a fun surprise!" I hope it's not something lame like roses. Have a good first day of work._

 

The lilies bloomed on his kitchen counter that summer, white as snow. They filled his apartment with a wonderful fragrance, one that Makoto grew to associate with home. It greeted him every afternoon when he returned from work.

Makoto set his newly acquired brown paper-wrapped lilies down on that very same kitchen counter.

As he ate his onigiri one by one, reading a book, as he slowly polished off his _oden_ by the light of his computer screen, typing up notes with one hand, the hours drew on.

The clock ticked past midnight with a hush and a _click_ , no different from any other hour.

 _A new day, huh,_ thought Makoto.

Masuda had promised to call him within the fortnight, and wished him a good weekend. Makoto looked at the calendar pinned to his wall. Within the fortnight, he would be nose-deep in examinations, and perhaps this day and all his anxieties over the job would seem like a long-ago dream in the mists of the past. He had made that decision so easily, years ago, with all the hopeful optimism of a fresh high school graduate.

_I’m going to join the teaching side of the swim world_

And now -

 _12:01_ , read the clock on his desk, and it flipped over into _12:02_ under Makoto's watchful gaze.

The hours were flying by, faster and faster every time he looked, and if he didn't look at all, he'd swear with every blink of his eyes that someone out there was tampering with his hourglass, because there was a no way that three years could have passed so quickly.

Makoto felt the sand running out, an invisible time limit drawing closer.

Their final year beckoned, and with it, a finish line that stretched into eternity, a finish line that brought Makoto closer, face to face, with his decision and what it truly meant. Finding his place in an arena that was, in its way, just as hugely competitive as the pool, fighting, working hard to prove himself, on his own -

The thought came up short there.

_No._

_Not on my own…_

There were lilies on his kitchen counter, and with their petals unfurling, unfolding, quietly, Makoto knew that the lives of these beautiful flowers would be no less brilliant for the short time they existed, and he knew in his heart with a hope so sweet it made his chest hurt, that with many years more to come for Haru, Rin and himself, they could bloom forth yet into the brightest of futures.

And he was never on his own.

 

* * *

 

"Don't feel like dancing?"

Rin blinked, and turned. Tanya was sitting on the bar stool next to him, sipping a martini with a smile on her face. It was warm and understanding and made Rin feel like an even shittier date.

"Nah," he said. "I'm sorry. I was just spacing out. I'd love to dance."

And he took her hand, and as they walked towards the dance floor people stopped to stare, because Rin's t-shirts always showed off his toned swimmer's arms and he didn't have a pair of bad jeans in his cupboard and these were _skinny_ ones, and Rin knew he was a wholly attractive young man with a charming lady by his side and they looked picture-perfect.

 _Young man._ It took Rin a split second to register that thought. No longer a boy, no longer a teenager.

As the music played on, Rin let go, let loose, lost himself in the beat. He always complained about being dragged out of the house, but once he hit the floor running, Rin could dance with the best of them.

It was a thing that he and Makoto used to do, hot up the karaoke rooms - Makoto with his voice, Rin with his moves - while Haru could, occasionally, be cajoled to do one or the other, depending on his mood.

 _Young men._ They had turned twenty-one last year. Haru first, then Makoto, and soon - too soon - it would be Rin's turn, last of all. Rin, the baby of the trio. He'd hung on as long as he could to being twenty and young, he'd teased Haru and Makoto for being old people, and now Rin found himself poised on the edge of adulthood, wondering when the hell it had come knocking, and where the hell it found the nerve.

His birthday beckoned. It was less than a month away.

They danced, and Rin let himself forget the passage of time, just for tonight. They bumped into Nate and Yumiko, and switched partners, and switched again, till Rin found himself dancing with Nate, and they fell apart, laughing and elbowing each other in the ribs.

The music soared to a thumping crescendo. Rin spun Tanya around, spun himself around, till their feet finally shuffled to a standstill, and they exchanged breathless smiles.

Tanya leaned in close to Rin, and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for tonight. I had fun."

"Yeah," said Rin. "Me too."

Summer nights in Sydney were just a little less sweltering than summer days. As they slowly made their way through the lingering crowd and stepped out of the club, a welcome rush of cool air hit Rin in the face.

They walked down the busy main street, towards the nearest taxi stand, and because Tanya had arrived in Sydney just this semester and didn't know all the good spots yet, Rin pointed out his favourite noodle bar, bubble tea shop and coffee place along the way.

"You know the city very well," Tanya remarked. "Did you grow up here? Like Yumi?"

"No," said Rin. "But I spent four years in school here, before transferring back to Japan."

"Ah... did you miss home?" asked Tanya, and the wistful note in her voice told Rin that she did.

 _Did I?_ Rin wondered. What was it that had drawn him back to Japan, all those years ago?

He looked at the Canadian exchange student walking by his side, decided the chances of ever seeing her again were extremely low, and figured he might as well be honest, for once.

"There were people in Japan who loved me," said Rin. "And I let myself forget that, for too long."

He smiled to himself, in the silence that followed.

"And what about now?" asked Tanya, as they came to a stop next to a blue and yellow taxi sign.

_What about now?_

A taxi pulled up, interrupting Rin's thoughts. He reached over to open the door for Tanya, but when he started to get in, she shook her head.

"It's okay. No need to send me all the way back," she said, smiling. "You've been great company. Thanks... oh, what's this?"

In the shadows of the cab's interior, Rin glimpsed Tanya picking up something long and slim from the backseat.

The cabbie turned around. "Huh. Looks like the last passenger left that behind. Sorry about that, miss - "

Tanya laughed. "No need to be sorry. Here, Rin, you can have it. It seems to suit you somehow."

And she leaned out of the taxi door, and held out -

A single sunflower, blooming bright and yellow on a sturdy green stalk.

Before Rin could say anything, she'd pressed it into his fingers, waved him goodnight, and zoomed off.

Rin stared at the flower in his hands.

_Well, that's a first. No one's ever called me a sunflower._

He thought of turning back to the club to look for Nate so they could share a taxi home. His feet started moving. He twirled the sunflower absently, glancing down at it from time to time.

It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that Rin realised his feet had walked him in the wrong direction, all the way to Darling Harbour, and that he had never given Tanya an answer to her question, and that he had simply done what he always did when there was something on his mind, which was to seek the nearest outlet to the ocean and gaze at the water till he found what he was looking for.

_What about now?_

Well - now -

Rin was surging forward, riding the current of the future without hesitation. Rin was reaching out, stretching his arms ahead of him, as far as he could - waiting for his chance to leap, and soar -

But the only reason he could do that was because he knew that if he fell, Makoto and Haru would be there to catch him, the bonds between them the strongest safety net he could hope for. If even a stranger could see the sun in him now, it was because they were his sky, and they gave him a place to belong.

The sunflower dangled in his fingers. He sat down by the steps of the waterfront, and gazed out into the cool, placid blue of Cockle Bay.

He let himself remember that he was loved.

 

 

✮

 

 

Haruka stood alone on the edge of a snow-covered slope, breathing in the clean mountain air of Yamagata, letting it fill his lungs with a renewed determination.

 

* * *

 

Makoto set the lilies into a vase, and breathed in their scent with a soft, secret smile to himself.

 

* * *

 

 _Breathe now, just breathe,_ thought Rin, overwhelmed, as he stared into the shimmering lights of the city, sparkling in the water.

 

* * *

 

_you are not alone_

 

 

✮

 

 

And when morning dawned, the sun rose over the horizon, brighter than before.

 

 


End file.
